After doing my taxes earlier this year and realizing how much I spent in travel expenses on my 8 Ironmans versus only winning one paycheck worth $500, my goal this year was to make 2011 a more profitable racing year. Just breaking even would be a big improvement actually! People have been interested in the financial aspect of racing as a pro so I thought I would do a little cost analysis after each race this year. My goal is to become a more financially sustainable pro triathlete!

As for the race, well, I did so well that I got featured not just once but TWICE on the finishers’ video at the awards ceremony. The screenshot above says it all; the video parts of me are at 1:26 and 8:24 if you don’t want to watch the whole video.

I lived in Texas for a whole year so I’m allowed to say “howdy y’all” right?

It’s been an excellent trip so far as I flew into Austin where I was well taken care of by the travel sponsor before being adopted by the Pak family, Minsok and Bliss, who are really an extension of the TBB family and both are also racing on Saturday.

We road-tripped with our Cervelo P3′s to the race site today, where we hooked up with a 4th P3 and TBB’er…Maki Mouse from Japan! We only associate with people who ride Cervelo P3′s apparently

I finally got assigned my bib #’s since I was able to sneak onto the start list super last minute. It’s a pretty big field, because all the girls knew I was racing in China so they decided to sign up for Texas instead. I totally pulled a fast one on all of them. Obviously I was involved with the IM China conspiracy to throw them all off. Bwahaha

Other than racing Ironman me and roommate Maki have already made a Texas to-do list, which includes going shopping for a cowboy hat and eating at the Cheesecake Factory. The girl LOVES cheeesecake and I was shocked she’s never been to the Cheesecake Factory! For seriously.

I started writing a rather lengthy post about my thoughts on the cancellation of Ironman China’s swim, and then the whole race. But I’ve learned not to write emails or post blogs when I’m extremely upset so here I’ll post a picture of my laptop for you:

Suffice it to say, IM China is a special race to me and I’m just so disappointed that I won’t get to race it this year and visit mainland China for the first time. I found out only 48hrs before I was supposed to fly out but Mom and Coach (who are more or less the same person in two bodies) didn’t let me cry over it for more than 10 seconds and it was on to find a replacement race.

So the Great Wall, Olympic stadium, Peking duck will all have to wait. I even learned enough Mandarin to be able to ask “would you like to go to my place and drink two beers?”

Instead I’ve packed my cowboy boots for Ironman Texas this Saturday. The Lone Star State called and said they needed a triathlon superstar, y’all.

Yesterday was my 2011 triathlon season opener, the New Jersey Devilman–about a third of the Ironman distance with a slightly longer bike (0.8-mile swim, 40.3-mile bike, 8.8-mile run) and actually the first triathlon I’ve done shorter than an Ironman in the last two years.

I ended up as 2nd woman overall and it was a great way to shake off the cobwebs since IMAZ back in November, get in a solid “speed” training day, test out some new race gear and of course prep my equipment with custom stickers and stuff!

we can't all be The Wongstar.

I had my aerodrink bottle Wongstar-ized, made a special edition Hello Panda bento box, and put on the new *pink!* Blaze Hydrotail from Beaker Concepts.

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes... LOVE is all around me and so the feeling grows...

I tried out my new Project X wetsuit from 2XU, aka the “Tron Wetsuit”, and it was super fast!

Scottie had sent me my 2XU race uniforms since I missed the photo shoot in Thailand. Everything fit but the one-piece race kit, which was just too short for my long torso. It gave me a front and back wedgie, like I needed to be 3 inches shorter, so I ended up racing in my cycling kit which looked super sharp.

pic courtesy of Tri-Dawg Lenny

Most importantly I got to test out my new race sherpa, who made his triathlon debut. He won’t be coming to all my races since he is just a rookie sherpa and undergoing very intense training in order to become a full-fledged Ironman sherpa, but I think he performed rather well yesterday considering he had never been to a triathlon before.

I interviewed him after the race and finally started playing around with some video editing software, so hopefully this means I can post up more fun videos when I leave for Ironman China next week. I didn’t save it as a super high quality but that means it won’t take forever to download/upload.

And I personally didn’t even know when the Royal Wedding was supposed to be either, although I’m sure my mom would’ve told me. She was always a huge Princess Diana fan and I remember how devastated she was and even what we were doing on that fateful day back in 1997. My siblings and I were watching a rerun of Baywatch when they flashed the news of the car crash across the bottom of the screen…underlining some scene with David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson no doubt.

But my main goal in life is to become an international superstar of some sort, and I came to realize there was a lesson to be learned from the Royal Wedding. See, last Friday morning as I was ready to head out the door, the Facebook app on my smartphone started blowing up with everyone’s updates on the Royal Wedding. I turned on the TV and holy crap, it was on every single channel.

the best thing about having a sister is that your girlfriends can't fight over who maid of honor will be

Sure I only pay $10.95/month for the basic channels but still! My first thought was whoa, that has to set a new precedent for international superstardom: having your wedding broadcast on every single channel in a foreign country. I’m not going to even pretend that being a triathlon superstar will let me come anything close to that… Although I do recall my cousin Alex remarking a year or two back, that since I was in a different country every other month, he wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up streaming my wedding live on the internets. ha!!

Other than that, I do love weddings and doesn’t every girl grow up wanting to be a pretty, pretty princess? So I ended up leaving the TV on whenever I was back at the apartment and without further ado, here were my top 5 thoughts:

#5: Time has not been kind to Prince William’s hairline.

sorry Wills, but please put your hat back on.

It’s unfortunate because as my friend Courtney also mentioned in her blog, what girl who is now 28 (+/- a couple years) didn’t have a crush on Wills when we were all younger? Prince Harry used to be the awkward-looking runt but I’d have to say I’ve officially switched over to Team Harry.

#4: Tiaras are the best!

if only we could all look this lovely when we get married!

I’m currently building up my own collection. I think I’ll pack one when I go to the races to accessorize potential podium outfits.

#3: The silly Brits say “‘Til death us do part” instead of “Til death do us part.”

seriously, compare the two brothers' hair.

#2: Those wedding guests can totally re-wear their hats at the Kentucky Derby this weekend!

A visit to the 'Ville isn't complete without trying on derby hats. I'll be returning in August!

#1: Wow, Kate has a hot younger sister with a super cute nickname “Pippa” and quite the perky butt.

the butt that spawned a Facebook fan page

I wasn’t really paying attention until later that night when my older sister messaged me “You are totally the Pippa to my Kate.” Like the Middleton sisters, we are also 20 months apart and have been duking it out for almost 30 years. I thought it was because of the brouhaha I overheard on TV about how Kate’s sister had a maid of honor (ooops, I mean “HONOUR”; they’re British) dress also in a shade of white, as if she were trying to steal Kate’s thunder.

My sister also confirmed it was because I had a perkier butt. Apparently, those rear-end shots of Pippa holding Kate’s train made the rounds on the internet and her butt even has its own Facebook page now, the “Pippa Middleton Ass Appreciation Society” with over 180,000 fans and growing strong! The internets has described Pippa as “Gorgeous, athletic, confident, supportive and totally sisterly” and already “making a splash as a female with some back assets” so I’d have to say yes, that’s me. If by “totally sisterly” they mean “always trying to one-up the big sister,” then yeah!

Yes, I’m totally a fan. Three cheers for younger sisters! And may everyone find true love and happiness, hearts and sunshine and rainbows and all that!

5. flexible start time.
Why get up before the butt-crack of dawn when you can better simulate a start time of when you get off the bike in an Ironman, which is after 1pm. No, I’m not lazy, we all know I can never sleep in past 7:30am.

4. choose your own route (not unlike MBE’s choose your own adventure).
Because living in a small state is still a novelty for me, I charted out a route that goes into Pennsylvania AND Maryland, just to say I ran a marathon going through three states. (In California it takes 4 hours driving to reach the Nevada border and 6 hours to hit Oregon.) You can also plan to have real flushable toilet stops at gas stations/Wawa/7-11′s!

3. have your own soundtrack.
OK, these days you see a bunch of marathoners ignoring the “no ipod” rule at races but I’d still be freaked out that I could like…win something and then they’ll be like, “wait! She wore her ipod! DQ’d!!”

Aid stations have Slurpees and Reese’s PB cups!!!!!

yes there are 4 different flavors in this. the magic running sticks keep cash & route directions from getting sweaty, and are very photogenic.

And anything else you feel like, really. with about 90mins left of my run, I found myself at the University of Delaware campus where there was a big 7-11 with 10 flavors of Slurpee. There was Mountain Dew and Pina Colada and Blueberry and Fruit Punch…and Coca-Cola and Lime…so the Camelbak got a Slurpee refill! Be careful not to drink it too fast, brainfreeze you know.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…if I could figure out how to keep a fresh Slurpee in my Camelbak on race days that would be like the most awesomest idea ever!